If you have a taste for absurd scandals, this has been a hilarious week. One of the most amusing I can remember, in fact. Three separate incidents have come along to make my day since last Monday. But of course, in keeping with our times, each one has a darker aspect, an unfunny side story that detracts from what would otherwise be an exercise in pure joy.

First, of course, there is the epic corruption scandal surrounding Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich. I encourage everyone to go straight to the source, “United States of America v. Rod Blagojevich and John Harris“. I spent much of Tuesday coming through the 70-plus page document for hilarious and profanity laced passages in which the governor muses about, among other things, taking bribes for Barack Obama’s senate seats, having newspaper editors fired for criticizing him, and getting himself appointed head of the Change to Win coalition. And to think: this guy had a 4% approval rating before any of this came out.

I think this pretty much sums up the situation (link provided because I can’t figure out how to embed videos here).

Sadly, this amazing scandal has had not one but several unfortunate consequences. First of all, the sheer brazenness of the scheming apparently forced U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald to bring his case before he was really ready, which could result in Blago avoiding jail time. Second, even though Barack Obama does not actually seem to be implicated in any way, the media has cracked open their Clinton-era playbook and started concocting a phony scandal out of nothing. Third and worst of all, the scandal appears to have ensnared Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., who is a) a real progressive; b) one of my favorite members of the House; c) the guy I was really hoping would get the Senate seat.

All that aside, my attention was drawn away from the Blagojevich mess by the next amazing scandal, in which big-shot investor Bernard Madoff was unmasked as the proprietor of the biggest Ponzi scheme in the history of the world, and rich investors and hedge funds suddenly found themselves $50 billion poorer.

What made this so delicious was not just the petty joy of seeing rich jerks like Mort Zuckerman lose millions upon millions of dollars, but also the way Madoff perfectly embodied the overall logic of the financial crisis. After all, a Ponzi scheme is based on constantly using the money from new investors to pay off the old ones, and it works as long as new investors keep coming along. It’s only when everyone starts trying to get their money out that the fraud collapses. And that’s exactly what happened in the housing market: speculators would buy houses at inflated prices, but they could always sell them to someone else for an even more inflated price. Until, one day, there was no one left to buy, and suddenly the bubble burst. And as with the housing market, there’s strong evidence that many people knew perfectly well that the whole thing was a fraudulent scheme, but went along with it because everyone could make money along the way. The main difference between what Madoff did and what the big investment banks did is that only one of the activities was technically legal.

Once again, though, there’s a sour note at the end of this tale. All those millionaires who lost their money to Madoff? Well it turns out that we, the taxpayers, will be giving them a very generous bailout. As Felix Salmon explains, they can write off the whole debacle as a “theft loss”, meaning that they are entitled not only to a huge tax break this year, but refunds on taxes they paid on Madoff’s phony profits in the past. Salmon speculates that this could end up costing the government billions of dollars–which, as he puts it, “is real money even by government standards.”

So, as ever, privatized profit and socialized risk. But never mind that, because I haven’t gotten to by far the funniest thing that’s happened in the last week. I refer, of course, to the heroic and courageous actions of one Muntadhar al-Zaidi, who concisely expressed the feelings of so many people throughout America and the world when he threw his shoes at President Bush. Seriously, Obama needs to give this guy the Congressional Medal of Freedom or something. With any luck, this will be the image history associates with the Bush presidency:

To make things even more awesome, this is what al-Zaidi yelled as he threw the shoes:

“This is a farewell kiss, you dog. This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed
in Iraq.”

That pretty much sums it up.

But again, there’s a catch, and this one is even worse than the downsides to the other two stories. After throwing the shoes, al-Zaidi was whisked away by Iraqi security forces, and even as I write this he’s probably being tortured. Which, if it weren’t so horrifying, would also be a fitting representation of what Bush has done to Iraq.

There may be little we can do for al-Zaidi, but we can at least show our solidarity. Readers are encouraged to send their old shoes to the following address:

George W. Bush Presidential Library
c/o SMU
6425 Boaz Lane
Dallas TX 75205